Report: Arcade Fire in Toronto

Photos, review, and setlist from the band's show at Danforth Music Hall last night

It's common practice for big bands to preview new material in surprise, intimate-venue shows. For Arcade Fire, "intimate" means a regal theatre with a capacity of 1,200. However, Toronto's Danforth Music Hall-- the site of two Arcade Fire concerts this weekend, announced just 48 hours prior-- holds a significant place in Arcade Fire lore. It was here that the Montreal art-pop ensemble sold out three consecutive nights in April 2005 during the victory lap of the Funeral tour, effectively confirming their graduation from small clubs to concert halls. So it's an environment in which the band felt more than comfortable to unveil material from their upcoming third album, The Suburbs, before their first non-Quebecois audience of 2010.

There's always been an implicit conceptual bent to the Arcade Fire's albums, from the death/rebirth motif of Funeral to the state-of-the-union addresses of Neon Bible. Early promotional materials for The Suburbs have prefaced its title with the loaded phrase "Arcade Fire Presents," suggesting a more pronounced thematic framework. However, the Danforth Music Hall stage bore no signs of a Greendale-style production; rather, the new album's essence was more easily discerned by the eight-piece band's choice of attire, which traded in the buttoned-up bible-student look of old for more casual denims and plaids (the sole flashes of glam provided by Win Butler's Leo DiCaprio-gone-Chelsea-Girl haircut and RégineChassange black-leather gloves). Which is to say The Suburbs tracks previewed last night downplayed the band's choral grandeur, instead showcasing the band at their most punk-rock aggressive and their most serenely bucolic.

Certainly, the band have never sounded more fearsome than on the opening one-two of "Ready to Start"-- which saw Chassange doubling up with Jeremy Gara on drums-- and hard-charging locomotive rocker "Month of May", which came off like a cynical antidote to the rousing promise of Funeral's "Wake Up," as Butler sang dismissively about how "the kids are still standing with their arms folded tight" while crossing his own arms.

But the subsequent appearance of Funeral's orchestro-disco salvo "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" established the show's rhythm of alternating pairs of new songs with batches of familiar favorites, and also nicely set up The Suburbs' more stately material, in which the album's main themes — namely, social and geographic disconnect — were more pronounced. The title track elicited enthusiastic applause on account of its jaunty "Oh Yoko!"-style piano rolls, playful falsetto chorus and the ascending violin lines of Sarah Neufeld and Marika Anthony Shaw that squealed like singing saws. "Suburban War", however, was less engaging; as if seemingly aware of its own languid folk-rock pace, the song overcompensates with a melodramatic, tribal-pounded coda that feels like it was grafted on from a different song.

Ultimately, this concert was as much about what the Arcade Fire did play (seven new songs and a great deal of Funeral) as what they didn't-- i.e., most of Neon Bible (represented on this night only by singles "Intervention" and "Keep the Car Running"; "No Cars Go" was also played, but that song dates back to their 2003 EP).

As more of The Suburbs was revealed, it became clear that the new tracks aren't ideal complements to the apocalyptic rumble of "Black Mirror", the scathing satire of "Antichrist Television Blues", or the tortured despair of "My Body Is a Cage". Rather, the clap-along groove of "Modern Man", the gently swelling "Rococo" (featuring a lovely chorus of angelic harmonies supplied by the ladies), and the nervy, piano-powered "We Used to Wait" were marked by their patience, restraint and suavity. Like their Merge labelmates Spoon, the Arcade Fire have tapped into a mode of songcraft that possesses a certain classic-rock-radio familiarity but is marked by a very modern sense of unease.

However, even as their songwriting grows more existential, the Arcade Fire can always turn on the spectacle at the drop of a megaphone. And much like they did at this same venue five years ago, the band reached their ecstatic peak at that precise moment where the cacophonous conclusion of "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" dissolved into the bouncy bass build-up of "Rebellion (Lies)," during which Win Butler descended into the crowd while brother Will, after losing his drumstick, used his strap-on floor tom as a punching bag. Given how far the Arcade Fire's sound has drifted away from Funeral's calamitous anthems, it's heartening to know the band still feed off of the potentially dangerous onstage theatrics that defined their early years.

It's doubtful the band will ever get sick of performing encore finale "Wake Up", since they don't really have to sing it anymore, instead deferring to the audience to belt out that bracing wordless chorus. Over the years, "Wake Up" has lent itself to many functional uses, from U2's stadium intro theme to sports-telecast bumper music. Last night, it served a different purpose: to summon the return of big-tent indie rock's ringleaders. Look out all you chillwavers-- as Butler sings on "Intervention", the kings are taking back their throne.